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'Final' notice: Back to work or you're fired

200 Market Basket front-office, warehouse employees warned

By Grant Welker, gwelker@lowellsun.com

Updated:
08/13/2014 07:56:58 AM EDT

Donnie Bube, a full-time Market Basket employee, protests at the store on Water Street in Fitchburg Tuesday afternoon. The protest and boycott that has brought the chain to a standstill will reach four weeks on Friday. SUN / ASHLEY GREEN

Market Basket management has issued a final warning to about 200 employees to return to work by Friday or lose their jobs.

The company says those front-office and warehouse workers have not reported to work since July 17, the day before a major rally kicked off an employee protest and customer boycott.

Executives who have taken over after Arthur T. Demoulas was fired as CEO in June have issued a few pleas before for employees to get back on the job. They have not yet taken any action against those who've remained out of work but said Tuesday they are "left with no choice but to make this last request."

The company held three days of job fairs last week, at which hundreds of employees and former employees picketed to protest what they say as threats against their jobs.

"We are writing one final time, to invite you to return to work and perform your job obligations," the letter said. "If your role requires that you primarily work at the company's headquarters or distribution facilities, you must return to such role ready to fulfill your duties by no later than Friday, August 15, 2014."

"Should you choose to ignore either of these directives, the company will consider you to have abandoned your job, thereby ending your employment with the company," the letter continued. "We look forward to your return so that we can resume our efforts to fulfill our customers' needs."

About 200 employees who work at the headquarters and distribution centers received the letter, Market Basket said.

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The company said it would follow all applicable laws "should these associates choose to abandon their posts."

A popular employee website called We Are Market Basket called the letters another attempt "to divide us and conquer us." It criticized the executives, saying other attempts to tell employees to return to work had been made only through the media.

"We will not be backed into a corner. Nor will we abandon any of our MB Family," the website said in a message to the board of directors, co-CEOs Jim Gooch and Felicia Thornton, and shareholders who helped remove Demoulas.

A sign at the Market Basket store on John Fitch Highway in Fitchburg Tuesday lists all the items that are out of stock. "Waiting for ATD for deliveries," it says, referring to ousted CEO Arthur T. Demoulas. SUN / ASHLEY GREEN

One outspoken front-office worker, Rosie Hagopian, called the letter "just another scare tactic."

"We're not going back until Artie T. is put back, 100 percent, full authority," she said. "We've all been rallying together. Everyone's unanimous."

"The letter means absolutely nothing to us," she added.

An online fundraiser gathering money to help warehouse workers and drivers who've been out of work has raised more than $93,000 from about 1,500 donors in about three weeks.

The protest and boycott that has brought the chain to a standstill will reach four weeks Friday, with current and former employees estimating daily losses exceeding $10 million. Arthur T. Demoulas has offered to buy out the 50.5 percent of shares of the company his side of the family does not own, and the competing side has said it has agreed with his purchase price, which has not been disclosed.

The two sides have been unable to agree on other details of a potential sale.

The side of the family associated with the former CEO's cousin, Arthur S. Demoulas, has said Arthur T. has not agreed with their proposal to have him return to work in a reduced role on an interim basis while talks continue. Arthur T. has said his offer price has not fallen as the company's losses have mounted in recent weeks, but criticized what rival family members have requested.

Counterproposals have been "laden with onerous terms that are far beyond comparable transactions," he said in a statement over the weekend.

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